300 copies of Lindby’s next album, Erikson, are being duplicated/pressed and will arrive in less than one week’s time!

Six Years Ago (Senior Year of High School):

We find my good friend Matthew and myself in AP (Advanced Placement) Psychology: loving the class for its GPA-enhancing multiplier (our high school graded on a scale of 120 instead of 100, and AP class grades were multiplied by 1.2 while “normal” classes were only multiplied by 1.0) and loathing it for its numerous projects.

Both suffering from “senior-itis,” we resorted to our standby project plan: make a video instead of following the normal project guidelines. Earlier in the year, in AP Government, we made a 20 minute short film about an act of legislation that would replace the country’s current military with pirates.

While the video only contained about 20% of actual legislation and other government-related content, the other 80% of fluff and pirated-related action was entertaining enough to score us both an A and have it shown to every other government class for the next few years.

Back in psychology, our teacher wasn’t too fond of this video-in-place-of-a-paper idea. Fortunately, we had the pirate video to persuade her.

Long story short, we made a scene (some rather odd and involving adult diapers and the like) for each stage of development, but we lacked a method of summarizing it all into a nice, neat package.

We needed an Erikson montage: a musical, Erikson montage.

So I sat down and came up with what I thought an absurdly basic and silly song but was still somewhat catchy.

I pondered recording it and putting it on the blog, but I think I’d run the risk of giving the wrong impression about the upcoming album. Instead, I’ll just share the lyrics:

Erikson, oh my Erikson

You Made up the Erikson

Stages of Psychological Development

You really had to sing psychological development quite quickly (not to mention that we didn’t even realize that the word was actually psychosocial – our research was not that of academia caliber), and it certainly wasn’t a wordsmith wonder either.

Nonetheless, the first incarnation of Erikson was born. Now it would sleep – undisturbed for almost four whole years.

Roughly Two Years Ago (The Beginning of Lindby’s next album):

Lindby had just finished up an EP, For The Love of Sven and Porgy, at the UTA recording studio. It had turned out alright but was essentially just a revamping of five older songs.

We were ready to make something new.

Of course, the ironic bit is that we made something new by returning to something rather old.

One day, Goodrich and myself were perusing and sifting through old material in the hopes of finding something worth revamping/rehashing.

As luck would have it, we came across Erikson. Goodrich knew about Erikson but hadn’t been in the class with Matthew and myself (otherwise he certainly would have been part of our group and would have assisted with both the film and song). Upon hearing it again – for the first time in years – he commented on how it was decently catchy.

After a bit of discussion, we were both struck with the idea of researching all of the famous Eriksons of the world and creating a song for each of them in a different genre. We would keep the same chords/structure (for the most part) and use the individual’s life story to help assist in defining the genre and lyrics.

From that very moment, we knew the album would simply be:

Erikson

The Next Two Years (Recording the album):

For the next two years we did the following:

Wrote new songs

Revamped old songs

Discarded many songs

Transformed old songs in a new songs that were so different that they were almost unrecognizable

Explored a number of different genres including (but not limited to): reggae, fugues, bossa, electronic, and more

Lost a vocalist to Seattle

Lost a drummer to Houston

Gained a drummer

Said drummer also makes beats, remixes, and is also trained in recording (which means an additional set of trained ears during the tracking and mixing process of an album)

Recorded in a number of different rooms while Goodrich continued to build and expand his studio

Hired brass players for the first time to play on two songs

Goodrich spent countless hours mixing and mixing

Our painter friend, Stuart, and Goodrich’s wife/graphic designer, Katie, created all of the album art

We took the album to a professional mastering house for the first time (this basically means making the album sound better [ie deeper, punchier, and clearer] instead of just making it louder)

But after all of that (and a few other small items like college graduations, a number of moves, a marriage, and an engagement) we find ourselves back at this very moment – where 300 copies of Erikson are current being pressed/duplicated.

Early Next Week:

The albums will arrive, and this is what we shall see upon opening the box:

I won’t spoil what the cover means. It’s a mystery best solved by you, the listener.

Friday, June 22nd at the Cellar (The Album Release Show!):

After six years, the night has finally arrived: the release of Erikson.